


Swallow Your Own Key

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Banners from the Turrets/The Servant Has No Such Ambition [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Canon Backstory, Other, Sexual Harassment, nothing explicit just very very inappropriate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 05:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19167019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: Some millions of years before the war, the Functionist Council is putting together its grand taxonomy, which would be a much easier task if there wasn't this one particular psychotherapist whostubbornlyrefuses to be anything remotely useful or identifiable. And unfortunately for Rung, someone around here has taken an interest in his case.





	Swallow Your Own Key

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is applicable to pretty much any IDW setting with Rung, but it especially fits in here with the later themes of this AU, so this is where I'm choosing to file it.

The unfortunate fact of life is that sometimes it is not enough to simply live a quiet life, keeping your head down. The hammer loves the nail; one will find the other, sooner or later.

By the first time Rung met council member One of Twelve, his visits to the Functionist center had become almost routine, a familiar discomfort, unremarkable. He had been between books at that time--his star a bit on the wane, in recent centuries, but certainly not extinguished. A clever new crop of young psychiatrists were on the rise, and among their number several had sought Rung out specifically for guidance and support. Mentoring had made him happy. Froid, daring and innovative and distinctly interested in Rung, had made him happy.

The census, although it had not made him happy, seemed like a fleeting thing then. A momentary concession to a religious party already losing ground in the greater political scene. Although the frequent summons were inconvenient, he hadn't worried much about them. Sooner or later they would forget about him and move on. Everyone does eventually. It's just a matter of holding still.

He meets the councilmech on his fortieth visit to the Functionist Headquarters, on a day that should have been unremarkable...

The seat of the Functionist council is as utilitarian as it is finely constructed, luxurious materials at exorbitant cost to furnish a gaping, empty lobby with one massive reception desk. The Receptionist doesn’t need to look up from his switchboard, nor can he stand to greet Rung, because of course his masters have seen fit to expediently bolt and jack him in to the apparatus. Nonetheless, when he senses Rung coming, there’s an immediate relaxation.

“Back again, eh,” he says, his hollow eyes flickering and cycling as he processes the data of every security device simultaneously, most likely watching Rung from several angles across the lobby. As it does every time Rung encounters the Receptionist, a chill rattles down his spine. He _can_ imagine what kind of lot in life would make being bolted into a terminal seem like a preferable alternative, but it’s a terrible thing to contemplate.

Rung makes some small talk with the Receptionist; he always makes sure to arrive early so there’s plenty of time to describe to him how the weather is outside, or what the traffic was like, or the new construction going up at the edge of Translucentia Heights. Every time, he spends the length of their conversation looking for signs of rust or form fatigue in the Receptionist’s seams. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he ever finds them.

After that it’s a quick shot up to the floor where the examiners are expecting him; he’s come in enough times now that he could find the way in stand-by mode. The door is open for him when he arrives.

The first few times he showed up, he had met only technicians and secretaries. By now he’s met Nine of Twelve a spare handful of times, but mostly, still, he only sees grunts and the odd surgeon.

“Hello, Leafspring,” Rung says, addressing the mech behind the monitor.

Leafspring startles, the adaptors in each hand clunking clumsily against each other as he jumps and then glances over his shoulder. “Hey, um, Rung,” he says.

His optics keep sliding towards the inner doorway, the closed entrance to the sterile lab. Rung fights back a grimace--if they’re using the sterile lab today, it’s not going to be a good day. Honestly none of his days spent at the Functionist center are good days, but anything that necessitates a sterile environment is almost certainly going to involve opening him up again for invasive evaluations.

Rung points at the lab door. “You want me to go on in?” he asks, trying for a friendly smile.

“What? Oh, no,” Leafspring says. The jungle of blue and black cables carpeting the floor spark in a cascade as Leafspring plugs one end of the adaptor into the another. There’s no particularly clear place on the floor to stand--the examination table is missing entirely--

Rung glances at the door again, uneasy. “Well… alright then,” he says. “Where _do_ you want me?”

 _“Right there will be fine,”_ says a voice, smooth and synthetic, as the lab door comes open.

Ice prickles in Rung’s fuel lines. He knows that voice. He’s heard it once, perhaps twice before, although the cool, clear artificiality of it is shared by eleven others. The mech that glides into the room is one whom Rung has seen gracing the halls here in the company of his brothers, observing silently through the glass windows of the upper floors, dispensing orders to gunshy assistants.

One of Twelve is not a particularly large mech. Of a breed a little older than the War of the Primes, they are all--like Rung, in fact--mode fidelists. Aristocrats, blue-wired from pede to helm; not for them the crude augmentation of the wartime arms race. Nonetheless, the golden bands inset between those finger joints can’t possibly be more than ornamentation. They don’t have the look of something that serves a purpose. Rung eyes them, keeping his own conclusions to himself.

“Hello, Dr. Rung,” the councilor says, his single burning optic spinning as it zooms in to appraise the visitor. “What a fascination it is to finally meet you. You’ve been giving our taxonomists quite the tease, haven’t you?”

The phrasing lights up several warning signs in the part of his processor that handles psychoanalytics.

“I,” Rung says, and then resets his voice box, steadying himself. “Not my intention, I assure you.”

He has met a different member of the Twelve several times--Nine, the investigator. Nine’s oversight makes sense, given that Rung’s presence here is part of an ongoing investigation. One’s presence, however, is more difficult to construe.

“To what do I owe the visit?” Rung ventures, always weak to the pull of curiosity.

One tilts his head slightly. “I will be directing the evaluations today,” he informs Rung. “I would like to see for myself why it is taking so long for our supposedly competent scientists to produce any useful data on you.”

“Your scientists are all very dedicated workers,” Rung says, trying not to grimace at the memory of the more invasive tests. “I’m sure they’re doing their best.”

“And yet after decades of investigation we know as little now as the day you reported for census taking. Meanwhile, the whole of Cybertron has been classified and organized down to the last putting trash scuttle, while you remain… adrift.”

“I’ve been told I’m an enigma,” Rung says, carefully.

“Quite so,” One says. “And how is it, I wonder, that a mech does not know his own purpose?”

That tone is like poison candy. Rung feels his back plating twitch. “I’m as affected by information creep as anyone, councilor. As far back as my clearest memory, I haven’t been used for anything more complicated than--unfortunately--a stepping stool, once.”

Each of the Twelve, with their monocular optics and mouthless faces, are uncanny figures. Rung can tell just by watching the shifts of Leafspring’s body language how discomfiting the average person finds a member of the Twelve. But Rung has served as a therapist for a few empuratees over the years--hacked off violence in their muted faces, poorly matched lines of symmetry, bulk in the wrong places, graceless and dismembered--and he’s seen far worse than one aristocrat’s alien symmetry. He isn’t moved.

“One might think,” the councilor goes on, sidling closer, “that you were deliberating withholding something from us.”

“I assure you,” Rung says, holding his ground, “I’d like to be done with this as much as anyone else here. The sooner this is wrapped up, the sooner I can get back to planning for my conference.”

“Conference,” One echoes, pronouncing it as if finding the word wanting in some way. “Yes. You’re presenting a paper on… what was it? Architecture?”

“Archetypes,” Rung corrects him. “I have a theory about the underlying structure of personality programming that suggests we are all more similar than--”

“And do you suppose that’s the kind of work for a bot like _you?”_ One asks, pushing Rung’s jaw to the side as if inspecting him for casting flaws. “A barely-passable footstool playing at doctor?” The tip of his finger is unsettlingly warm, and he seems carelessly confident that he can do whatever he pleases.

Rung knows a baited hook when he sees one. He ducks his head out of the way as politely as he can, and is relieved when One’s touch doesn’t follow him.

“Like I said, I’m on a bit of a schedule,” Rung hedges, “so if it’s all the same to you, I’m ready to get started.”

One’s single optic blazes. “Your eagerness does you credit,” he says, and it’s impossible to tell if it’s in sincerity or irony.

“Eagerness, yes,” Rung says. He glances around the room once more, just in case. “There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to sit--usually there’s an examination berth here somewhere--”

“Oh, we won’t be needing that for someone like you,” One says. “Why don’t you assume a position of appropriate respect, _doctor?”_

Rung’s tanks turn over. “I beg your pardon?

“Down.” One of Twelve taps his finger in the direction of the ground. It’s almost playful. “On your knees.”

“I _am_ submitting to these examinations voluntarily,” Rung says. “I can leave whenever I like, Councilor.”

“You think so, do you?” One replies. He reaches out and chucks Rung’s chin with one glinting finger, an over-familiar touch that makes Rung’s plating crawl. “Yes, you can always leave, of course. You’re not bolted to the floor, now, are you?”

One tilts his head like he’s waiting for a laugh. Rung is much too uneasy to even consider faking one.

“No, you’re not,” One answers himself, after a moment. He turns his expressionless optic on the technician's station. “You can leave here at any time. Then again, a citizen who does not comply with the census is in violation of his government’s strictures. Letting a doctor go about like that, flouting his civic duty, well. He isn’t showing a good example for his patients, is he?”

The touch traces from chin to jaw to audial. One of Twelve runs his fingertip up the length of Rung’s antenna, provoking an involuntary shiver. There is nothing in that single, yellow optic. No flicker, no curve, no depth. The glass is good quality, the housing intricate and elegant despite its deep uncanniness.  

“I understand at one time you were quite indispensable to the senate. It’s a shame how fleeting such favor can be.” His touch is light and almost curious, stroking over the sensitive apparatus. “Who, I wonder, would protect you now?”

Rung understands that he’s being threatened. He stands stock still while One rolls his antenna between those glimmering fingers, fuel pump pounding, hands locked into fists.

“So,” One says, and tweaks the antenna (Rung’s sensor net jolts) before finally letting go. “Get on your knees, doctor.”

The door is only a series of steps away. It’s even open, the blue tile of the hallway visible through it. Rung can go. He can go. But--this isn’t about what Rung wants. The work he does is important; the work _must_ continue. He has responsibilities. He has a duty of care. Back in Rodion, there are people who count on him.

And more than that--he’s not sure who he would be, without the work.

Slowly, jaw set, Rung sinks to his knees. The joints give a soft groan of protest as they hit the floor, old components not liking the jostle.

“Better,” One purrs.

“Is that all?” Rung asks tightly.

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” One turns from him, a hand gesturing lazily. “Stay there. Don’t get up.”

So Rung stays. He stays while One of Twelve observes the monitors and inspects the hardline equipment, flips through the charts, and all the rest. Leafspring gives Rung several uneasy sympathetic glances when he thinks One isn’t looking, his weight shifting uncomfortably behind the row of databanks. He does it one too many times, as it turns out. Rung is staring ahead, deliberately not watching One of Twelve pry open his medical ports, when the councilmech notices.

“Technician,” One says, snapping his fingers sharply. “Do you find the subject distracting?”

Leafspring flinches. “I--” he stutters. “No, sir. I just… he’s a pretty old model. His joints might not be designed to take that much prolonged pressure. I could find him a--”

“ _Technician_ ,” One cuts through. “Let me invest some advice in you that your superiors seem to have overlooked. You mustn’t pity these troublemakers, you see? All the rebellious, blasphemous freethinkers feed off your pity. They make a home in it, like electrovoles hollowing out a corpse for their wretched nests. You must be hard with them, like Primus intended.”

As he talks, One is slotting cable after cable into Rung’s medical ports, employing cable splitters when he runs out of viable plug space. The sight of it sets Rung on edge--he tells himself it’s a natural reaction to the sight of the cable splitter, the uncanniness of that tool is hard wired into their species somewhere deep in the instinctual programming, but--

His sensor net is alive and crawling with the overstimulation of so many disparate feeds. Every autonomous program is trying to online at once, inside of him, from intake purge to interface systems.

“You must never allow yourself to be tempted by a warm set of panels,” One is telling (ostensibly) Leafspring, although in his growing intensity all he seems to have an eye for are Rung’s sparking, overworked ports. “Smiles, pleas, sob stories--”

One slams a cable into his last available port and Rung can’t hold back a shudder.

“Half a vorn of testing,” One says, and despite his lack of a mouth to pronounce it, there’s something audibly like a snarl in his voice. “And not one ounce of result to show for it. The only thing you seem to be good for is taking up _space_.”

Rung grits his denta and clutches his knees, trying not to let on how much the simultaneous foreign programs are overtaxing his systems. There’s a reason why they usually only subject him to one or two at a time--this many at once would knock a less resilient bot into hard reboot. He can’t imagine the data quality is very good either. Several of these _have_ to be interfering with each other.

“Leave us,” One says.

“Sir?” Leafspring says, confused and wary.

“Are you deaf, as well as incompetent?” One asks, without looking away from Rung, who is shuddering now intermittently on the floor before him.

“...Sir,” Leafspring acknowledges, and begins reluctantly gathering up his things.

Rung’s visual suite fizzles and resets. A shiver runs down his backstrut. The demands of the crawler programs are causing his frame to build heat; charge is jumping from the plugs to the ports in what his frame keeps trying to interpret as arousal.

One of Twelve circles him, mantle swishing over the floor.

“You _are_ a pretty thing,” One says, “for an obsolete waste of energon. The eyebrows are too much, but those hip joints nearly make up for it. You can open those up wide, can’t you? You must be quite flexible. Open them up for me.”

Rung grimaces. “Councilor--” he starts.

“ _Spread_ your _knees_ , doctor. That is an order.”

Reluctantly, Rung steadies himself against the ground and parts his thighs. Although his modesty panel is firmly in place, the way One’s hungry optic stares at the space between his legs--

One of the monitors give a ping. One turns away from him to get a look at the readouts, at first voraciously intent, and then with growing visible displeasure.

“Nonsense,” he mutters. “You’re nonsense. You shouldn’t _exist_.”

“That’s an interesting philosophical position,” Rung says, not without some bitterness. “I’ll be sure to mention it at the next interdisciplinary convention. Have you gotten what you wanted?”

“Far from it,” One replies, and offlines the monitor in one swift motion. “But that’s alright. Now that I’ve seen the extent of the problem, I can see that appropriate measures will need to be taken.”

Rung’s spark flares cold. He’s been coming here for decades, he should be at the _end_ of this process, not at the start of more of it.

“I should really be getting back to my office,” Rung says. “The conference is only a few work cycles away, and I still have a talk to prepare--”

One of Twelve swivels his deadeyed optic. “Oh no,” he says, in an electronic purr, “no, I think they’ll do just fine without you. They don’t really _need_ you there, do they? After all, you have a conference partner. I’m sure. Dr. Froid would be more than happy to take over your talks for the time being, given the circumstances.”

Rung wants to hard-reboot his sensory array, but he knows it’s pointless. He didn’t mishear that. “You can’t just _give_ my talks to some other bot,” he says, confounded. “We’re not interchangeable--even if Froid _agreed_ to this insanity, which he _wouldn’t_ \--”

“I’ve already taken the liberty of clearing it with him,” One says, waving off the matter as easily as a mote of dust. “He is more than happy to fill in for his dear friend and mentor while we proceed here. Your notes have all been transferred to his databanks as of this morning.”

“But--” Rung gapes. “But that’s--that’s _my_ work, those are _my_ studies, how did you even arrange--how _long_  have you been--”

One pats his cheek and Rung recoils, leaning as far from the hand as possible.

“Accommodations have been made,” the councilmech says. “You will stay here, in headquarters, while the investigatory team takes a _thorough_ exploration of your assets. You will recharge in a chamber we have assigned for your use. You will report for testing with the first shift cycle each day. You will fuel whenever you have completed your testing, and no sooner.”

“But my patients--”

“If you want to get back to see them so very badly,” One says, “you should certainly endeavor to make the testing process as efficient as possible, shouldn’t you?”

By now the cables plugged into him are dead in his ports, their prodding programs no longer running through his systems. They merely sit lodged inside of him, heavy and unwelcome, crackling with charge that isn’t quite dissipating. It doesn’t escape him what One is doing here: Rung could only be more vulnerable right now if he was literally cracked open for internal viewing.

“One of my secretaries will show you to your quarters,” One says. “You should already be quite familiar with the examination berth we requisitioned. While you are here, I must ask that you not interfere with any of the ongoing work. You wouldn’t like it if we had to enforce a locked door policy.”  

One holds out a hand, as if to offer Rung help up. It seems a polite gesture, even kind, but Rung knows his type. The fist that strikes and the hand that feeds--it’s a trap that Rung has no intention of falling into.

Rung reaches up and jerks the heaviest of the cables out of himself, letting it clunk to the ground. He’s already running damage control in his processor. Once he’s alone, he’ll send a memo to the office and arrange for some of his colleagues to cover shifts with his most unstable patients. Froid--he can’t think about this right now, not while One is watching him--well, Froid will be happy to take one _more_ thing off Rung’s hands, won’t he? He’ll keep up correspondence with whoever he can. Surely they’ll allow him correspondence here? It’s not as if he’s being _imprisoned_.

He can weather this storm. He has leave time built up at work. Tighten your bolts, he thinks: it’s just a little while longer. The work is worth it. The work is always worth it. If he can’t be of help to people, he doesn’t know what he would be.

“License or no license, you can’t hold me here indefinitely,” he says, more a reminder to himself than a warning. “I _can_ leave _.”_

One leans forward, takes the smallest cable and twists it free. It discharges an abrupt shock of static into Rung's port; Rung tries not to flinch.

“Yes, I’m sure you could,” One says. “But doctor, where would you go?”

 


End file.
